, Joaquin Almunia, the European competition commissioner, has indicated he is happy for state funds to be used to support the government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) framework if some minor changes are made to the design of the scheme.

No indication was provided of in the report of what the 'minor changes' might be.

The decision, however, still needs to be approved by other commissioners, which is likely to delay any announcement until later this month.

State aid approval has been one of many sticking points for the government's plans to get superfast fibre networks into rural areas.

from the House of Lords Communications Committee questioned BDUK's success in increasing competition in the broadband marketplace, which has seen a number of ISPs pull out of the bidding process and to date has only seen BT win public funds.